On the deadliest day in 17 months of fighting, Israeli forces killed at least 40 Palestinians today with fire from land, sea and air after five Israeli teenagers died in a Palestinian's suicidal rampage through a settlement south of here.

The foreign ministers of 22 Arab nations called for international intervention ''to stop Israeli aggression that has no excuse or justification,'' on a day that one of them, Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, called Black Friday.

Funerals were held throughout the Gaza Strip, where 16 Palestinians, most of them armed, died in one savage firefight with Israeli forces. Young boys ran through the streets here behind a lofted corpse, waving the green, black and yellow flags of the Palestinian factions and calling for revenge.

As the killing surged throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a tentative gesture toward diplomacy: He said on Israeli television this evening that he was dropping his demand for an absolute calm lasting seven days before undertaking an American-brokered cease-fire plan. His goal, he said, was to negotiate a cease-fire.

With his public restive and his government sharply divided, Mr. Sharon appeared to be moving aggressively in two directions, making an overture for talks even as Israel intensified its military campaign throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Raanan Gissin, Mr. Sharon's spokesman, emphasized that Israel would not unilaterally silence its guns during any talks, which Mr. Sharon himself would lead. ''We will negotiate, and we will not cut off negotiations while there is fire,'' he said, ''but we will respond to fire with fire.''

The moves came a day after President Bush said his special envoy, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, would return to the Middle East next week in a renewed bid to broker a cease-fire. Two previous visits by General Zinni, a retired Marine, failed to stanch the mayhem.

Palestinian officials said today they had detained Majdi Rimawi, a suspect whose arrest Israel had demanded last October after the assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.

Israel has made the arrest of suspects in the case a condition for lifting its blockade on the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.

In the West Bank today, Israeli forces invaded Bethlehem and encircled Palestinian gunmen in Tulkarm. Twelve Palestinians, including at least one child, died in the fighting, and an Israeli soldier was shot dead in Tulkarm.

Dozens of men surrendered in Tulkarm this evening, walking with their hands up. The Israeli Army said it had arrested 60 Palestinian security officers and dozens of civilians whom it suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Tonight, Palestinian gunmen clashed again with Israeli forces near here. Tanks opened fire near the boundary with Israel, wounding at least one Palestinian, and the boom of exploding shells echoed over the darkened city.

Israeli warplanes thundered over Gaza again today as American-made Apache helicopters attacked Palestinian positions in the north and south.

Israeli forces killed 16 Palestinians south of here in Khouza. The dead there included the chief of Palestinian security forces in the southern Gaza Strip, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mefraj. The Israeli Army said a gunman who killed an Israeli soldier earlier this week along Gaza's boundary with Israel came from that village.

Some Palestinians suggested today that Israel was out to provoke a wave of Palestinian violence just as General Zinni returns to Israel. They noted that his first visit here, at the end of November, coincided with several Palestinian attacks that they said were provoked by Israel's killing a week earlier of a top leader of Hamas, the Islamic organization.

Mr. Gissin, Mr. Sharon's spokesman, said Israel was fighting back today against a coordinated and relentless terrorist campaign.

''I apologize in advance, but it seems sometimes that you ignore that every day we have funerals of young women and innocent children that we have to bury,'' he said. ''We don't even have time to go from one funeral to another. What do you want us to do? Sit back and play dead? We have a responsibility to defend our citizens, like any other country, including the United States.''

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In Jerusalem today, police shot dead a Palestinian man they said was carrying a bomb he was about to detonate.

The violence in Gaza followed an attack overnight against a Jewish settlement, Atzmona, south of here. A Palestinian militant from Hamas, armed with an assault rifle, at least nine clips of bullets and six grenades, raced though an school in the settlement.

He flung a grenade into a dormitory room, killing one student with a blast that scorched the room black. He then killed four teenagers while they were studying religious texts, before he was shot dead.

General Mefraj's superior officer, Brig. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaidie, narrowly escaped when he hastily left a building moments before Apaches rocketed it in what Palestinians called an assassination attempt.

Before dawn, as aircraft passed high overhead, Palestinian gunmen raced through the streets here, firing ineffectually into the air. Two sets of five powerful explosions sounded over the city.

The Israeli Army confirmed that at least one ship had opened fire on the northern Gaza Strip, in what it called an operation against ''terrorist targets'' linked to the Palestinian Authority. Five more Palestinians died in that attack, among them a medic, Said Youssef Shaliyehl.

''The Palestinian people think Sharon is planning a massacre,'' said Samir al-Halak, 38, who joined mourners for Mr. Shaliyehl under a tent in the Jabaliyah refugee camp north of here. He said Mr. Shaliyehl had just gotten engaged on Thursday.

Two other medics died violently today. The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that a 40-year-old paramedic, Ibrahim Assad, was killed in his ambulance in Tulkarm as he was responding to an emergency call. Another paramedic, Kamal Hamdan, working for the United Nations agency that assists Palestinian refugees, was also killed.

The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a statement appealing for protection of its staff. ''The I.C.R.C. condemns these attacks and calls on the Israeli authorities to take immediate steps to protect medical personnel and to conduct a full inquiry into the latest events,'' it said.

In Bethlehem, Hatem Mashal, a United Nations medic, waited outside the hospital this afternoon for permission from the Israelis to transport a Palestinian who had been shot in the head to better facilities in Jerusalem. ''All the ambulance people and the medics feel targeted these days,'' said Mr. Mashal, whose blue vest, over his bullet-proof jacket, was stained with blood. ''This makes us be more cautious. The one who pays the price is the injured person.''

According to residents of Bethlehem, the attacks there began with F-16 and Apache raids in the middle of the night, including another bombardment of the old British police headquarters, which had been battered three times before.

Tanks rolled in from the east and west, and by afternoon they had taken up positions near two refugee camps. Outside the camps, soldiers began a house-to-house search in two neighborhoods, Aida and Al Doha.

Witnesses said the soldiers broke through interior walls to avoid being exposed to snipers, a tactic they used in Tulkarm and other West Bank refugee camps. In one house, witnesses said, a woman was killed by a falling wall. In all, six Palestinians were killed today in Bethlehem, Palestinian officials said.

The streets of Bethlehem were eerily empty, as most residents obeyed an Israeli curfew, announced over the loudspeaker of an armored car rolling through the quiet streets. The only sign of life was in Al Doha, where several children attempted to build a barricade from stones and a burning tire. An Israeli jeep burst easily through the rubble.

Outside the Intercontinental Hotel, occupied today by Israeli forces, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was seen dragging an oil filter attached to a metal cable that ended in an electrical switch. ''It's a fake just to scare soldiers and tanks,'' he said.

In a further sign of maneuvering ahead of General Zinni's visit, Mr. Sharon plans to submit to his cabinet on Sunday two linked American-brokered plans for restoring peace: a cease-fire plan drawn up by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and a broader framework to lead to substantive peace talks devised by a commission led by the former United States senator George Mitchell. For months Israeli spokesmen have repeatedly indicated that the government supported the plans but the government has never formally adopted them.

Mr. Sharon was elected more than a year ago on a promise of peace and security, but his support is dissipating as the violence grows. A poll published today in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth showed that 53 percent of Israelis no longer have confidence in him. More than 70 percent of Israelis said his government had not lived up to their expectations.

The newspaper devoted a full page to color pictures of 327 Israelis killed in the conflict. More than three times as many Palestinians have also been killed.